


caramel

by nevereverever



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (I tagged it major character death for safety), Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Candy, Cooking, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, Graphic Depiction of Dying, Grief/Mourning, Non-Graphic Violence, Sibling Love, Swearing, Temporary Character Death, Whump, Yiddish as Elvish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22370080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevereverever/pseuds/nevereverever
Summary: The first time Taako is left alone, it isn't pretty. But their lives are stuck in a loop and people come back and die again and again and he wonders if there will ever be a time when he doesn't have to fear being left alone.A story of twins in two partsorA caramel recipe attached to some very sad fic
Relationships: Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks! Couple of notes at the top here. First, there is some non-english text in this story. It is Yiddish, here representing Elvish (Taako says bubbeleh, that's a Yiddish word, I love Yiddish as a language, I spiraled). Each phrase will have an annotation of the pronunciation and meaning of the word. Second, this first chapter is shameless whump, I'm sorry. 
> 
> Enjoy(ish) Friends!

The first time Taako is left alone, it isn’t pretty

“Taako, watch your fucking back,” Lup called, casting something bright and powerful behind them into the depths of the cave. They were approaching the entrance, and there was light. One thing they’d learned about these creatures early in the cycle was that they couldn’t handle the near-constant daylight on this godforsaken planet.

“I was looking for Merle,” Taako said, panting for breath. They’d split the party like the idiots they were and he hadn’t seen Merle once they started running. He sent a volley of magic missiles at the creature chasing them just as they reached the mouth of the cave. The air was cool but the sun was warm and bright. 

“Merle’s gone,” Lup said from behind him as they blessedly emerged into the sunlight.

“What the fuck, Lup?” He didn’t even bother turning around, just stowed the Light in his bag for safekeeping. His heart clenched painfully in his chest. At least this blasted plane would be safe, not that it mattered. 

“One of those things got him, demolished his hit points. It was coming for me, he told me to run.” She sounded wrecked. Taako wanted to goof to lighten the mood, but he found he couldn’t. What was with all of his friends being so good and self-sacrificing? He kicked a rock that was in his path.

“Fuck. Alright, we’ll see him next year. 4 months right?” He turned around to look at her when he’d judged they were far enough from the cave that none of the beasties that had taken his friend would venture out to eat them. Just like they were eating Merle. His gaze caught on her face and there was a flash of white-hot panic in her eyes.

“4 months,” she parrotted. She stumbled and caught herself on one of the trees. Taako looked down and saw her with a hand pressed up to a bloody wound in her stomach.

“Lulu?” He was petrified. She half-smiled and leaned harder into the tree at her back.

“I’m alright. One of ‘em got me. Attack plus poison damage, cool right?” A shiver ran through her and she almost lost her balance and Taako still couldn't fucking move.

“Could you have told me that before?” His voice broke over the question before he composed himself and started rummaging through his bag from the medical supplies he was certain he’d packed.

“Taako, our cleric’s dead, we’ve used our healing potions. What are you gonna do about it?” Her tone was teasing, but the playfulness evaporated when she had to bite back a groan. She slid down the tree, landing heavily on the sparse underbrush. The sight of it knocked him back, and there was adrenaline in his blood and he could move again.

“I don’t know. Here,” he pulled the medicine kit from the bottom of his bag and rushed to his sister. From close up, he could see her face was sweaty and drained of color. She tried to smile again. “Fuck, Lup.” He carefully moved her hand away from the gash on her stomach and it was gruesome. He gagged but quickly regained his composure.

“Yeah, it’s not great.” She was panting and her face was drawn. He pulled off his IPRE jacket and put it in her hands, then pressed it to her wound to staunch the bleeding so he’d have time to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do. How in the world he was supposed to save his twin, his sister, his other fucking half.

He looked at the paltry contents of his medkit- a roll of bandage, needle and thread, disinfectant- they’d raided the healing potions earlier that week. His hands were shaking and Lup’s hands were covered in blood and Merle was fucking dead.

“Shit. Lulu-” He looked up and caught her gaze. She gave him a watery smile and a gasping breath. Took a hand off of her bleeding wound and put it on his cheek,

“[1]זיסקייַט,” she whispered, “we both know I’m not making it back to the ship.” He wanted to argue it with her, to sew her up and make her better and then roast the hell out of her for thinking she was going to die, fucking idiot. But he also knew that she was right. He wouldn't be able to get her back home in time.

She caught his gaze, and she had a look in her eyes he’d never seen before. Desperate and defeated and tired and scared.

“Hold me?” She asked. His will to fight broke, and he nodded, maneuvered them so that she was sitting up, laying against his chest. He took her hand and felt how weak her pulse was. She settled into him and if he closed his eyes, it was almost like they were back in the caravan. Like she was falling asleep propped up against him because ‘Risotto is tiring, Koko.”

“D’you remember when Auntie Trisket taught us to make our own caramels and I stuck my finger in the boiling sugar because she’d always said we should taste as we work?” The memory was a distraction at best, but it made her smile again. If he was going to have to live without her smile for 4 months, he was gonna savor it while he could. She gripped his hand tighter, so tight that it hurt.

“You were su-” her voice caught and she gasped against the pain, spasming in his arms, “such a dumbass.” He put his cheek on top of her head and held her closer and pressed harder against the wound trying to take his best friend.

“I resent the implication that I am not still a dumbass.” He paused, and the only sound was her increasingly shallow, wheezing breaths. “I’m not gonna last 4 months without you, “[2]מײן נשמה׳לע.” 

“Well, you can’t die when I’m gone. You’re in charge of Barold,” she said, her words running together. She laughed at her own joke, but it distorted into a cry of pain. He could feel the tears start to run down his cheeks and fall into her hair. 

“Is Barold in charge of me?” He asked. She hummed her assent. She kept taking short gasping breaths that sounded like she was battling for each one.

“I’m gonna make you the best fuckin caramels any planar system has ever seen when you get back.” She didn’t respond, head lolling against his shoulder. “Lulu?” He shook her lightly because he wasn't sure he was ready for her to go yet.

“Hurts,” she managed to rasp. Just the single word seemed to take it out of her, and her eyes slipped shut. He held her close, rocked and hushed her as she whimpered. She cried out again, high and breathy, and he pressed a kiss to her temple. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could take it, just sitting and watching her die. He wanted to be with her but she was suffering with every second.

“Please.” Her body was tightly wound, tense with the pain of dying. The blood had soaked through the jacket in his hand. He let it go. It wasn’t going to save her, nothing was. Something snapped in him, something primal.

"Lu, it's okay. You don't have to fight. Let go and then wake up in 4 months and we're gonna be okay. You got that, dumbass. It's okay, you can go." Something in her relaxed. Maybe not physically, but he could feel the strain ease, so he kept going.

“I know, I know, just let go “[3]מיין ליב,” he soothed. He kept rocking, back and forth, mumbling reassurances into her ear as she slowly went limp in his arms. 

She murmured something that might have been I love you in Elvish, but the sounds got slurred and caught in her throat. It didn't matter. They'd all stopped keeping track of last words.

There is a terrible moment when someone is dying when they inhale sharply and do not exhale. Like they had a last hope for being alive. The silence that comes after when you realize that it was the last breath, that they’re gone, is crippling.

He was alone.

Taako does not remember how he got back to the ship. He knew that he cast Disintegrate so nothing could fucking touch her. He knew he watched as the wind blew her away. His next memory was telling his four remaining crewmates the bare outline of what had happened, and then completely falling apart.

He remembered sinking to his knees on the deck, clothes still dirty and bloodied. He remembered crying so hard that someone cast Calm Emotions and feeling it roll over him like a cooling wave. He hated it, deserved to be sad and angry. He made one hell of a wisdom save against it and kicked and cursed and fought as someone cast again. Failed, felt somebody catch him as he went limp, his energy expended. Someone smoothed his hair out of his eyes.

He remembered someone stripping away his clothes and setting him gently into a bathtub, washing away the grit and grime and his sister’s blood. He could tell they were speaking but didn’t have the presence of mind to answer them. He could tell they were being gentle with him even if he didn’t deserve it.

He remembered being set in his bed, still crying, and someone casting Suggestion. ‘Sleep, Taako. We’ll talk about it in the morning. You're not alone.’

He remembered telling them to fuck off before surrendering to sleep. 

He made breakfast the next morning. Put on some upbeat music and cooked alone which felt wrong and bad but what the fuck was he supposed to do about it. He could tell that his friends were watching him with big, sad eyes, so he ignored them. They didn’t talk about it.

When they get back to their recorded states 4 months later, Lup hugged him really hard and neither of them let go for a while. 

The next time he gets left alone, he doesn’t cry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, that took me for-fucking-ever, huh? Just like the last chapter, there will be linked Yiddish translations in the end-notes (and my favorite caramel recipe). This is the non-whump section, I hope you enjoy <3

When Lup walked into the kitchen, Taako was staring at a pot of something, his face blank and eyes glazed over. She wrapped her arms around his waist and put her chin on his shoulder. He tensed up for a second, then relaxed.

"Caramels?" She asked, looking down into the bubbling sugar. If she had to guess, she would put her money that it was in the soft ball stage. He hummed, low and quiet.

"There's pancakes in the oven. They woulda been fresh if you got up earlier, jabroni.” She could tell he was putting up a front. She could always tell. The winter sun streamed in through the kitchen window, cold.

“And what did I do to deserve pancakes?”

“Nothin,” he answered nonchalantly. He couldn’t see how hard she rolled her eyes at that one, but he could sense it.

“When, in the two centuries of our lives, have you made me pancakes that were not for an express purpose?” Taako brushed down the sides of the pot with a pastry brush and was quiet. “Seriously, what’s up?” He moved away from the stove and she took up his spot, as natural as breathing.

“You died, is what you did,” he said, grabbing the butter and cream, “in Cycle 9.” It felt like the air was punched out of her. She scanned back through her memories, landing on one of the worst days of their life. The pain and promises.

“Caramels.” She caught his eyes for the first time all morning and there was a coldness behind them that she didn't recognize.

"Yeah. Fuckin- ugh- Cretia rummaged around in my brain for a decade and I don't remember. Lup, did I make them for you?" He sounded more frustrated than anything.

"Yes, you did. What kind of question is that, of course you did." She tugged lightly at the braid that fell down his back. "The night after I got back." Taako's knife came down too hard on the butter and chopped into the cutting board with a thump.

“I don’t remember.” His voice was terse and closed off.

“It happened, babe. I can remember it for both of us.”

"I don't know. I hate-” he paused for a while, the tension returning to his body, “I didn't forget this recipe. Easiest shit I know how to do. 1 to 1 to 6 honey, water, sugar. Add butter and cream." The sugar bubbled, just starting to go golden around the edges. They stood by the stove watching it, bare inches apart.

"I stopped making them because they always gave me a headache. The static…" He trailed off, moving to swill the caramel.

“Is gone,” she finished, “I'm here now." She reached up to grab the vanilla and salt he'd forgotten. He took them without looking up, dance they’d known since they were born. "Plus I'm, like, immortal. You don't have to worry about that one anymore bro bro." He shook his head.

"You left."

"You found me."

"You died.”

"I got better. Taako," she said, her voice pleading. He dropped the cream and butter into the boiling sugar and it bubbled up angrily. She put a hand over his where it was braced against the counter. He didn’t look up, his eyes glazed over and empty. She cast Animate Object on the whisk. When he realized it wasn’t under his control anymore he turned to her, exasperated. 

“A fifth level spell on a whisk is overkill, sister mine.” He looked up. When he blinked, a tear ran down his cheek, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Since when do we care, brother dearest? We're all about the drama, babe.”

“That’s a transmutation spell, when did you prepare that? I’m the transmutation one around here.” He was trying to play it as a joke. She wouldn’t let him. She took a step closer.

“First, fuck you, I do what I want. Two, would you cut your shit and tell me why you’re making guilt candy 110 years after-”

“I’m not me without you,” he snapped, looking down at his feet. Abruptly, he reached for her hand and gripped it tightly. She didn’t know what to say to that. She hadn’t felt the separation like he had. She’d been alone, sure, but she hadn’t been singular.

“[1]זיסקייַט,” she breathed, unable to say much more.

“I’m not just not me, I’m worse. I’m- I’m heartless.” He covered his mouth with a shaking hand and let out a single heartbreaking sob. She pulled him into a hug and it scared her how easily he came, melting into her arms.

“I’m here now,” was all she could say. “You did so much good while I was gone.” Her words felt empty and fell flat. He shook his head into her shoulder, unconvinced.

“Yeah, to save my own ass. I don’t want to be that anymore, Lu.”

“You’re not. You are who you are now.” She just held him tighter. The caramels were setting in the pan but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She led them to the kitchen table and they sat, knees knocking together, hands intertwined while his breathing slowly settled and his tears stopped flowing.

“Do you remember, it’s okay if you don’t, what Auntie used to call us?” She asked.

“[2]באַשערט. Destined,” he sniffed, “a lil on the nose there, Lulu.” She shook her head and smiled.

“It’s not and we are. באַשערט. I think we’ve proven at this point that there are no forces in the infinite planar systems that can tear us apart. You are the only thing I’ve ever been certain about.”

“Not even marrying Barold?” He asked. She started to giggle despite herself.

“Babe, Barold puts small pieces of trash in his pockets and then leaves, like, small piles of trash around the house. Barold sleeps in his jeans. His favorite flavor of candy is banana. I had my fucking doubts.” He smiled at that, genuine for the first time all day.

“Stay,” he said with all of the power of a spell and all the love in his heart.

“Always,” she said, letting go of one of his hands to brush a strand of hair from his face, “you made pancakes. And some completely ruined caramels.”

“Nah, I can fix ‘em. I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m magic as hell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Zeeskeit - sweetness or sweetie[Return]
> 
> 2 Bashert - destined, fated[Return]
> 
> Caramel recipe here: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-soft-chewy-caramel-candies-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-180832
> 
> Love y'all!! Pop me a comment if you'd like

**Author's Note:**

> 1 Zeeskeit - sweetness or sweetie[Return]
> 
> 2 Meyn neshumeleh - my soul[Return]
> 
> 3 Meyn lib- my love or lovely[Return]
> 
> Hope you liked that. Next one, coming in probably like a week, will be much sweeter (somewhat literally).


End file.
